Est. 2010 – "Dishonest, diversionary and pompous…"

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Prophylactic Measures

Buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes even though earthquakes severe enough to do damage property and threaten life are statistically rare.

Levees and dams (other than those in California apparently) are designed to withstand 100 year storms even though 100 year storms are statistically rare.

Bridges are designed with at least a two times safety factor because it is statistically probable they will see a load or a combination of factors that will approach or exceed normal design loads.

Aircraft are designed to have redundant systems and backup systems to keep them in the air even though pane crashes are statistically rare.

America created and entire government agency, the Transportation Security Administration, that has operates at airports for 15 years with the singular purpose to subject prospective passengers to extreme vetting even though terrorist incidents involving aircraft are statistically rare.

Populations are vaccinated against certain communicable diseases even though a statistically small percentage of those inoculated will have adverse reactions.

Politicians tell us that every citizen must undergo extreme vetting if they want to own a gun and will be denied their Second Amendment rights if we don’t satisfy requirements set by the politicians even thought the number of gun related is statistically small.

Politicians tell us we must institute and pay for massive programs if the might save one child, insure one person or prevent one person from being offended.

Society has accepted the proposition that laws will be passed that all are expected to follow even though only to a small percentage of the population will be punished by them. For example – all 320 million people know they will go to jail for murder even though there are only around 16,000 murders in the US each year.

And yet temporarily restricting immigration from seven countries, seven failed or failing states, to allow time for us to understand who the non-citizens are who want to come into our country is “not who we are” and unconstitutional because there have not been enough terrorist attacks from those countries to satisfy the attorneys general of two states, a federal district judge, three judges on the 9th Circuit Court and the bulk of the progressive left.

The point is that society does not always decide to implement prophylactic measures based on the frequency of the risk, it often decides that, even though the frequency is rare, if that risk is ever realized and becomes an event, the result and impact of that event is undesirable and therefore must be prevented. To go against the historical pattern for progressives who always favor restriction of the behaviors of individuals for the good of the collective because the initiator is not a progressive indicates a purely political motive. Forget the history of the 9th Circuit – look to history to understand the true motive of the decisions of that court.